
Class _Ji 
Book 






COFlfRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



FOUR MODERN RELIGIOUS 
MOVEMENTS 



BY 
ARTHUR HAIRE FORSTER 




BOSTON 

RICHARD G. BADGER 

THE GORHAM PRESS 



COPYH-IGHT, 1919, BY ArTHUR HaIRE FoRSTER 



All Rights Reserved 



-*v?; 



Reprinted by the kind permission of 

TTie Teacher i* AssUtant, Toronto 

and Church Life 



Made in the United States of America 



The Gorham Press, Boston, U.S.A. 

.©CLAry^5273 

m '^s iyi9 



TO 

C. E. 



CONTENTS 
I 

PAGE 

Spiritualism . 9 

II 
Christian Science 25 

III 
Theosophy 39 

IV 
The Mormons or Latter Day Saints ... 58 

V 
Christ THE Word 72 

VI 

The Value of Death 77 

VII 

The Religious Opinions of Dean Swift . . 86 



FOUR MODERN RELIGIOUS 
MOVEMENTS 



FOUR MODERN RELIGIOUS 
MOVEMENTS 



SPIRITUALISM 

A SPIRITUALIST ought to mean a person 
who believes in a spiritual order or en- 
vironment to which man should adapt himself if 
he wishes to live the most real life. A material- 
ist, on the other hand, is one who believes that it 
is only necessary for man to adapt himself to this 
present world since there is nothing beyond it. 
The materialist *' sets his mind on the things that 
are upon the earth " because he has abandoned 
belief in a spiritual order. Every Christian is a 
spiritualist in the true sense of the term, but the 
word is now used chiefly of one who believed that 
the dead can and do communicate through me- 
diums with the living. The first page of the 
Spiritualist's Hymn Book declares that *' Spirit- 

9 



lO Four Modern Religious Movements 

ualism is the science of life; of the manifestation 
of the spirit — the intercommunion of the people 
of earth and those on the other side.'' On the 
same page one of their principles is given as ** the 
proven facts of communion between departed 
human spirits and mortals." 

It would be better if the word spiritism were 
used for this theory; this word is, in fact, so used 
by the French. Spiritualism or spiritism may be 
said to be the exaggeration of the Christian doc- 
trines of immortality and the communion of saints, 
but the exaggeration of a doctrine is often its 
corruption as well; the history of the Church of 
Rome contains many examples of that. How- 
ever, as most modern spiritualists have had some 
Christian training, though usually it is a stupid 
and inadequate training, the corruptions are not 
yet very evident. 

Spiritualism, like most other modern religious 
movements, is due to the Church's timidity, world- 
liness and want of intelligent teaching and propa- 
ganda. Spiritualists are uninstructed people look- 
ing for what the Church has left out. A spiritual- 
ist service consists in hymns, extempore prayer, 



spiritualism 1 1 



a trance address and " messages " from the 
dead given by a medium to some of those present. 
Seven or eight of the hymns in their book are well 
known to all Christians. ** Nearer, My God, to 
Thee," for example, is one of them. The trance 
address is delivered by someone who professes to 
be inspired by a departed spirit. I have listened 
to one given by a pleasant and prosperous-looking 
old man with a white vest, whose inspirer, we were 
informed, was an Egyptian, dead many thousand 
years. The subject was the parable of the Rich 
Man and Lazarus, and soon became an appeal to 
class jealousy. Spiritualism and a certain crude 
Socialism are often found in close alliance. The 
Rich Man of the parable, we were told, was in 
hell because he was rich. It did not seem to occur 
to the speaker or his inspirer that Abraham, who 
in the same parable is in Paradise, was also a rich 
man. We were also told that man is not fallen ; 
yet it was not explained how, in that case, priests 
and rich men could be such villains as he repre- 
sented them to be. The speaker also asserted 
that Christianity is merely Indian Buddhism in a 
new dress. This is a common theory among 



12 Four Modern Religious Movements 

many who know little about Buddhism and less 
about Christianity. Altogether one felt that the 
Egyptian might spend a few more centuries in 
the spirit world in improving his logic before he 
inspires anyone else. 

The chief attraction at a spiritualist service is 
the '^ messages '^ from the dead given by the me- 
dium. At one, for instance, the medium alleged 
that she saw spirit figures hovering over certain 
persons and trying to give them advice. The ad- 
vice was usually sensible enough — not to worry, 
not to wear black, to be careful of someone's 
health. 

The '* messages," however, do not always pro- 
duce happy results. Raupert, in '* The Dangers 
of Spiritualism," tells of a widow living near Paris 
who tied her two little children together and 
drowned them in a dirty pond in order to send 
them after another child which had died. This 
little child had spoken to her, she thought, at a 
seance and had told her that she was dull in the 
other world. The mother was probably afraid 
that her dead child might be lonely; the medium 
had read what was in her mind and given it as a 



spiritualism 13 



message from the other world. Most of the 
** messages " may be explained in that way, when 
they are not mere guesses by the medium, for peo- 
ple go to spiritualist services to hear and see 
** signs and wonders; " they go as sensation hunt- 
ers; if there are none to be had, then they must 
be invented for them. No prodigy, no pay, is the 
natural attitude, and this, of course, puts a pre- 
mium on fraud. Modern spiritualism is generally 
dated from 1847, when strange rappings were 
heard in the house of a man called Fox, living in 
the Township of Arcadia, New York State. The 
great excitement which these rappings caused was 
considerably cooled when one of Fox's daughters 
confessed that she made them by cracking her 
knee and toe joints. It was an unfortunate begin- 
ning for a new religion. 

Some years later the University of Pennsyl- 
vania appointed a commission, the Seybert Com- 
mission, to examine " Spiritualism." This exam- 
ination, it must be said, was not a complete one, 
but the secretary reported, after several experi- 
ments with mediums : '* I have been forced to the 
conclusion that spiritualism, as far at least as it has 



14 Four Modern Religious Movements 

shown itself before me, presents the melancholy 
spectacle of gross fraud perpetrated upon an un- 
critical portion of the community/' Spiritualism 
is not all fraud, but it flourishes because so many 
are so easily deceived and because so few know 
that its marvels can now be explained without sup- 
posing that the dead are communicating messages. 
In England many spiritualist societies were 
formed in the middle of the last century and 
" messages " were received from famous person- 
ages. For example, in 1854 Shakespeare trans- 
mitted a fragment of a play on ** The Death of 
Brennus." Here is one complete scene: ''The 
Seige of Crosium — Brennus: 'On, soldiers, 
on!' (After an obstinate siege of six months, 
Crosium is taken with an immense slaughter.) 
Scene closes." Shakespeare can scarcely be said 
to have improved as a writer of plays since his 
death. A Newcastle (England) spiritualist circle 
had twenty kings and seven queens appearing at 
one sitting. Later on King David promised the 
same circle elementary lessons in Hebrew, and 
Noah gave interesting and curious details about 
the earth before the flood. 



spiritualism 1 5 



These incidents explain why Professor William 
James onee said that what mankind at large most 
lacks is criticism and caution, not faith. But there 
are phenomena in " spiritualism " which cannot be 
explained by the fraud of mediums and the cre- 
dulity of those who wait on them. In 1882 the 
Society for Psychical Research was founded to in- 
vestigate these mysterious phenomena. Bishop 
Boyd-Carpenter of Ripon and Mr. Balfour have 
been presidents of this society, as well as many 
distinguished scientists and scholars. Some mem- 
bers have come to the conclusion that the dead do, 
under certain conditions, communicate with the liv- 
ing; others say the evidence is insufficient. In any 
case, the work of this society has shown that far 
more proof of '* messages " from the dead is re- 
quired than that offered at an ordinary spiritualist 
service. 

It sometimes happens that the by-product from 
the manufacture of some article becomes more im- 
portant than the article itself, and this is true of 
" spiritualism." Even if '* messages " from the 
dead are not proved, the investigation of alleged 
messages has shown the marvels of the human 



1 6 Four Modern Religious Movements 

mind, especially of that part of it which is called 
the subliminal self. Subliminal means below the 
threshold. This subliminal self or under-mind 
was ** discovered '' by F. W. Myers, the author of 
a well-known poem on St. Paul. It is that tract of 
the mind which operates in dreams, and indeed 
the careful study of dreams has thrown much 
light on many of the alleged facts of spiritualism. 
An incident will show what this under-mind can 
do — or rather perceive. It is condensed from 
a story guaranteed by Miss Dougall in the recent 
volume of essays called '* Immortality," by Canon 
Streeter and others. 

*' A Mrs. B., on her way to visit a medium or 
clairvoyant, called on a Miss A., who during the 
visit was thinking over certain striking events, 
events which, however, she never mentioned to 
Mrs. B. Mrs. B. soon returned and told Miss 
A. that the clairvoyant had been very uninterest- 
ing, having merely described a series of apparently 
meaningless visions. Miss A. was amazed to find 
that these visions were her own thoughts while 
Mrs. B. was with her on her first visit. Stranger 
still, the visions were introduced to the clairvoy- 



spiritualism 17 



ant's consciousness by a Chinaman in fine apparel. 
Now that morning Miss A. had been struck by the 
sight of two Chinamen coming down the steps of 
the Chinese Embassy in London; their Oriental 
dress had made an impression on her mind.'' 

This incident seems to imply that Mrs. B.'s '' un- 
der-mind " took, as it were, a photograph of the 
thoughts in Miss A.'s mind, and this mind-photo- 
graph was then developed by the medium in the 
form of visions. A medium, in fact, gives a dra- 
matic reproduction of what is in her client's mind, 
just as a dream is a dramatic reproduction of what 
has been in one's own mind during the day. Thus 
we see how difficult it would be to prove that it is a 
discarnate or disembodied spirit who is giving the 
messages. The '' revelations " of mediums and 
clairvoyants may nearly always be explained as 
readings from this life and no other. They might 
all come from the medium's *' photographing," so 
to speak, other minds, and producing the results in 
a trance-state, or else they might come from the 
medium's own hidden memory. For this under- 
mind, it seems, has an almost infallible memory. 
There is, for example, a case of an old lady who 



1 8 Four Modern Religious Movements 

spoke Hindustani in her delirium, though she had 
left India at the age of four and had never learned 
the language. In another case, the alleged spirit 
turned out to be a character in a novel which had 
once been read to the medium, and when the me- 
dium makes a mistake, it has often been found that 
the mistake already exists in the client's own mind. 
So, as Mr. Hereward Carrington, an investigator 
of spiritualist phenomena, says: *' Spirit mes- 
sages may be the result of the activity of the sec- 
ondary consciousness of the medium active at the 
time and passing itself off as a spirit — the super- 
normal knowledge displayed being gained by 
means of telepathy, clairvoyance and such super- 
normal processes and woven together by the me- 
dium's secondary consciousness to personate a 
spirit." Telepathy, mentioned by Mr. Carring- 
ton in this quotation, is the name for the fact that 
one mind can receive impressions from another 
mind at a distance without using the ordinary chan- 
nels, such as speech; it is a kind of mental wireless 
telegraphy, and is regarded as proved by most in- 
vestigators. Nearly everyone has had some ex- 
perience of it; we can often know when others 



spiritualism 19 



are writing to us or when something has happened 
to one in whom we are interested. It has even 
been asserted that children may be influenced for 
good by whispering to them while they are asleep. 
In this way suggestions may be given to their sub- 
conscious minds which will afterwards bear fruit 
in better living. It is not always easy to distin- 
guish clairvoyance from telepathy. Clairvoyance 
might be called *' mental eyesight," as when a per- 
son can tell what a card is without looking at it. 

Recent experiments in clairvoyance and telep- 
athy warn us that we cannot accept alleged spirit 
messages too readily. It is safer to follow the 
advice of the Greek poet Epicharmus, '^ Be sober 
and distrustful ; these are the sinews of the under- 
standing," or of St. Paul, ** Prove all things." 

Spiritualism is growing in popularity owing to 
the general spiritual unrest accentuated by the war. 
Any system which promises to open communica- 
tion with the departed is welcomed. But, as has 
been pointed out, the evidence for the reality of 
these communications is extremely doubtful. 
Much more care and criticism is required than 
such as is found at an ordinary spiritualist service. 



20 Four Modern Religious Movements 

The sorting of alleged messages is beyond the 
power of most of those who attend these services. 
Their infantile credulit)^ hinders the discovery of 
truth, for if everything be believed the true can 
never be sifted from the false. As regards the 
moral effects of spiritualism, it is difficult to reach 
any conclusion as yet. The story of the early 
Christian Church shows that a firm belief in im- 
mortalit}^ leads to a belief in human brotherhood. 
It might, indeed, be maintained that democracy 
stands or falls with the belief in immortality. If 
men no longer believe in a life after death they 
will seize all they can in this world without regard- 
ing the rights of others; the Germans and the Bol- 
sheviki have shown us that. To believe in a life 
after death is to lose the modern reverence for the 
man of wealth, for as the Parable of the Rich 
Man and Lazarus reminds us, the man of wealth 
may be a beggar in the other world. But spirit- 
ualists have not the monopoly of the doctrine of 
a future life; it is a fundamental Christian belief 
which the Church has allowed to fall into disuse, 
and it is a health-giving belief only when it comes 



spiritualism 2 1 



with communion with God and not from sensa- 
tional seances. 

Then a standard is needed in morality as in 
everything else, yet in spiritualism no standard is 
apparent. When Jesus is mentioned, it is often in 
a tone of patronage and of something like pity for 
those who make Him the Master of Life. The 
simpletons who run after the spirits will probably 
soon lose the Christian spirit. They yield to the 
flattering thought that they are broad-minded and 
*' freed from the fetters of orthodoxy." They 
forget that orthodoxy means literally right-think- 
ing, and they have not noticed that free thinking 
is often very loose thinking indeed. Furthermore, 
the effect of putting oneself in a passive state to 
receive *' messages '' cannot be healthy. In his 
book " Spiritualism and Insanity " Dr. Williams 
writes: " There is the serious injury to the men- 
tal organism which is bound to result from con- 
stantly getting into the habit of forcing the will to 
become perfectly passive." In the same work a 
doctor is quoted as saying that in six months he 
had twenty cases of insanity as the result of dab- 



22 Four Modern Religious Movements 

bling in spiritualism. Here, of course, it might be 
objected that these persons would have gone mad 
in any event, that they *' dabbled in spiritualism '' 
because they were mentally deficient; however, the 
fact is significant either way. Spiritualism is cer- 
tainly a danger to that strengthening of distinct 
personalities which is a necessary aim of Christian 
discipline, and it is especially harmful to those 
whose other interests are too few and whose in- 
tellect is too narrow. None the less, the growth 
of spiritualism is a valuable warning to the his- 
toric church. 

There is a story of a nurse who in her haste to 
throw out the dirty bath water threw out the baby 
too, so the Church, in throwing out abuses at the 
reformation, may have thrown out, in some in- 
stances, rightful uses. Spiritualism is perhaps her 
punishment for this unwise eviction. 

** The real cause," Miss Dougall writes, '' of 
the hold which spiritualism has on many religious 
minds is the failure of the Church to realize in 
practice the meaning of the communion of saints. 
The mediaeval Church failed on account of the 
un-Christian superstition which pictured the next 



spiritualism 23 



stage of existence as a state of mere torture and 
punishment. The reaction of the Protestant 
mind against mercenary prayers and ceremonies 
to relieve the misery of the souls in purgatory was 
healthy. But with this came in another supersti- 
tion, that it was wrong to pray for the dead or to 
believe in their fellowship with the living. In so 
far as it is a reaction against this newer supersti- 
tion, spiritualism shows a healthy instinct. But 
the methods employed by spiritualists to bridge 
with friendly overtures the stream of death ap- 
pear to be mistaken, and therefore dangerous. 
They are at best only a roundabout way of obtain- 
ing a sense of companionship with those who have 
passed on, since the same sense of companionship 
might be obtained better and more easily by 
prayer. Then, too, when this sense of compan- 
ionship is attained in the spiritualistic seance or by 
some private automatic means, it is inevitably 
mixed with and confused by communications from 
the inner mind of the medium or agent, which is 
always subject to telepathic intrusions from — 
none can tell whom." 

If this be so, then the true answer to spiritual- 



24 Four Modern Religious Movements 

ism is to recover within the Church that victorious 
attitude which marked the early Christians when 
they faced the fact of death, and to recover too 
their sense of companionship with their dead 
which is shown in their prayers. Our mourning 
and our tombstones do not exhibit this victory over 
death : they look more like defeat. 

Having ceased to pray for the departed, we 
have come to think that they are really dead to us, 
whereas they are, perhaps, nearer than we know. 



II 

CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 

IN 1862 Mrs. Patterson, formerly Mrs. Glover 
and afterwards Mrs. Eddy, went to consult a 
doctor called Quimby at Portland, Maine. This 
incident is the real beginning of Christian Science. 
Dr. Quimby helped Mrs. Patterson by mental sug- 
gestion, not by medicine, and gave her the idea 
which she afterward developed into '' Christian 
Science." He described his method as follows: 
'' I give no medicine. I tell the patient his trou- 
bles and what he thinks is the disease and my ex- 
planation is the cure. If I succeed in correcting 
his errors, I change the fluids of the system and 
establish the truth or health. The truth is the 
cure. The greatest evil that follows taking an 
opinion for a truth is disease. . . . Disease is our 
error and the work of the devil." This method, 
he called *^ Science of Health." It is similar to 
what is now known as '' psycho-therapeutics," a 

25 



26 Four Modern Religious Movements 

long word which merely means ** mind-cure," or 
treatment of the sick by influencing the mental life. 
It was familiar to Plato four hundred years before 
Christ. *' The well regulated soul," he wrote, 
*' by its authoritative power, maintains the body in 
perfect health." Dr. Quimby had two other pa- 
tients who borrowed and expanded his ideas. 
One was J. A. Dresser, the leader of the *' New 
Thought " movement, the other W. F. Evans, a 
Swedenborgian clergyman, who published a book, 
*' The Mental Cure," in 1869, six years before 
Mrs. Eddy's more famous ** Science and Health." 
Quimby's theory was briefly ** Disease is in its 
root a wrong belief, change that belief and we cure 
the disease." Mrs. Eddy went further and said 
that bodies have no real existence, therefore, of 
course, neither have their ailments. Strangely 
enough she discovered " Christian Science " in 
1866, the year in which Dr. Quimby died. The 
relation of mind to matter and the nature of mat- 
ter are old problems in philosophy and physical 
science. Mrs. Eddy settled them very simply by 
announcing that there is no such thing as matter. 
A true philosophy should account for all the facts; 



Christian Science 27 

Mrs. Eddy threw any inconvenient facts away. 
The human mind may be compared to a drunken 
man on a horse who, in trying to avoid falling off 
on the right side, falls off on the left. Material- 
ism, the theory that matter is everything, was pop- 
ular in her time ; she^ swayed over to the other side 
and fell off into the dogma that matter is nothing. 
That we suppose there is a material world is the 
result or creation of What Mrs. Eddy calls *' mor- 
tal mind." She does not make it very clear how 
this " mortal mind," which is nothing and yet has 
created the physical universe, came to be. The 
search for an answer to this question in her writ- 
ings has been described as " taking a long walk to 
catch a mist." Matter, no doubt, is not so gross 
as was once supposed. We are now told that it is 
essentially '^ units of electric force." It is, in fact, 
more easy to believe in matter as the manifestation 
of mind than ever before, yet matter as a mani- 
festation, as a *' Divine Language " is very differ- 
ent from matter as non-existent. Those who wish 
to understand Mrs. Eddy's philosophy will find 
a fair criticism of it in ^' The Truth and Error of 
Christian Science," by Miss Sturge. Its philos- 



2 8 Four Modern Religious Movements 

ophy is one of the attractions of '' Christian Sci- 
ence '' — for those who have not had a training in 
philosophy. 

The text-book of *' Christian Science " is Mrs. 
Eddy's " Science and Health with key to the Scrip- 
tures," a book which has been issued in more than 
four hundred editions. The cheapest copy adver- 
tised costs three dollars, so that the poor are shut 
out from the benefits of reading it, unless they bor- 
row a copy, as I did. The Key to the Scriptures is 
an explanation of the first chapters of Genesis and 
some chapters of the Revelation. These are dif- 
ficult parts of the Bible, but Mrs. Eddy says they 
are transparent to her and proceeds to inform us 
in the glossary of her book that the river Gihon 
(Genesis 2:13) means ^' the rights of woman, ac- 
knowledged morally, civilly and socially," while 
the river Hiddekel is " Divine Science understood 
and acknowledged." The Holy Ghost is also 
*' Divine Science," and so, as things which are 
equal to the same are equal to one another, the 
river Hiddekel must be the Holy Ghost. In addi- 
tion, the 23rd Psalm and the Lord's Prayer are 
explained. The Lord's Prayer is used at " Chris- 



Christian Science 29 

tian Science " services, but the reader inserts 
Mrs. Eddy's " improvement " after each peti- 
tion. For example, *' Give us this day our 
daily bread," means, we are told, ''Give us 
grace for to-day, feed the famished affections." 
Christ, it seems, was too material for Mrs. Eddy. 
If we must have an addition, the child's — in 
Hans Andersen's story, is perhaps the truest to 
the original meaning — '' give us this day our daily 
bread, with plenty of butter on it." Mrs. Eddy's 
comment on the words of Jesus, '' They shall lay 
hands on the sick and they shall recover," is 
'' Here the word hands is used metaphorically." 
Comment on this comment is scarcely needed. 
Of the first part of the book " Science and 
Health " Miss Sturge writes, '' It abounds in con- 
tradictions, not only to be found in the same page, 
the same paragraph, the same sentence, but often 
between two words used consecutively." 

Yet, in spite of Mrs. Eddy's cheap and confused 
philosophy, or perhaps we should call it metaphys- 
ics, many are cured by *' Christian Science." 
This, however, does not prove the truth of her 
theories, as she seems to imagine. Mental heal- 



30 Four Modern Religious Movements 

ing can be traced back for three thousand years 
and has been connected with the strangest theories. 
For example, in the seventeenth century, Valentine 
Greatrakes healed many in Ireland without medi- 
cine, though he maintained that all diseases were 
due to evil spirits. The theory is not of great con- 
sequence, though, of course, a true theory is bet- 
ter than an absurd one. What matters is the pa- 
tient's faith. The power of an idea, if it be 
firmly held, can cure many diseases. *' Christian 
Science," says Sir William Osier, '* is probably 
nothing more than mental suggestion under an- 
other name." The mind of man has more power 
than is generally admitted, and is wider than we 
are aware of. It may be compared to an iceberg, 
of which the greater part is under water. This 
unknown part, this undermind, which is at work 
in our dreams, is also at work on our health, and 
suggestions given to It from our conscious waking 
minds or from others can rouse it to heal, for 
mind and body are most closely connected, as may 
be seen when someone blushes as the result of a 
thought or of another's word. A patient may be 
literally ** saved by hope," hope inspired by an- 



Christian Science 31 

other's words or by his own faith. This is the 
truth which Mrs. Eddy seized upon and distorted. 
She tried to make a monopoly of a universal prin- 
ciple. The mistake, often a disastrous mistake of 
the Christian Scientists, is to apply this principle 
to all cases. A simple operation might have 
saved many who have become permanently 
maimed or who have died under Christian Sci- 
ence treatment. So Dr. Stephen Paget in his 
book, '* The Faith and Works of Chris.tian Sci- 
ence," can say of them, " They bully dying women 
and let babies die in pain; they rob the epileptic 
of their bromide, the heart cases of their digitalis ; 
let appendicitis go on to septic peritonitis, gastric 
ulcer to perforation of the stomach; compel them 
who should be kept still to take exercise and with- 
hold from all cases of cancer all hope of cure. 
To these works of the devil they bring their one 
gift, wilful and complete ignorance, and their nurs- 
ing would be a farce, if it were not a tragedy." 
Drugs, according to *' Christian Science," only act 
because they are expected to have certain effects; 
but drugs act on frogs — what are the metaphys- 
ical or religious theories of frogs? Would a 



32 Four Modern Religious Movements 

Christian Scientist take an ounce of prussic acid 
and trust to his belief that it would have no effect, 
to save him? Doctors, it is true, do not give 
drugs as much as they used to do; but for certain 
diseases, certain drugs are always given, because 
the doctor knows that drugs, like mental sugges- 
tion, are means by which nature may be helped 
to do the work which nothing can do for her. 

Dr. Paget quotes one rather ludicrous case, sent 
him by a doctor to illustrate Christian Science 
methods. The doctor was consulted by a man 
who had, for nearly a year, been treated by Chris- 
tian Scientists for deafness without any improve- 
ment. He examined the ear, removed a pledget 
of cotton and some wax, and the hearing was 
promptly restored. 

An American doctor wrote to Paget, '' I should 
say I had seen about a hundred cases in which the 
only chance for cure had been lost through the 
Christian Science treatment." 

At the end of *^ Science and Health," and also in 
Christian Science papers, there are testimonies by 
those who have been cured through Christian 
Science. No doubt many of these cures are genu- 



Christian Science 33 

ine, but they are not due to anything peculiar to 
Christian Science. They might occur equally well 
in the Church if that body had not forgotten the 
truth which Mrs. Eddy has distorted. Yet, in 
studying these testimonies of cure, it is impossible 
always to be sure that the patient really suffered 
from the disease of which he claims to have been 
cured. *' There are few things," says Dr. Porritt, 
*' upon which so little reliance can be placed as a 
patient's own estimate of his symptoms or the 
nature of his illness. Knowing this, doctors 
rarely treat themselves." 

These testimonies of cure make Christian Sci- 
ence resemble a new patent medicine, advertised 
with pictures of those who have tried it and re- 
covered. But neither Christian Scientists nor the 
patent medicine advertisers give us a list of those 
who have tried their treatments and not recovered. 
'* There is," says Dr. Paget, '' but one way to 
get at the truth about a new method of medical or 
surgical treatment, every case must be reported.^' 

In theology Mrs. Eddy revived, though prob- 
ably without knowing it, the heresy of Cerinthus, 
a theory about Jesus which the Church rejected as 



34 Four Modern Religious Movements 

an insufficient and misleading interpretation. St. 
John is said to have written his gospel in answer 
to Cerinthus. ** The word became flesh and 
dwelt among us " was not spiritual enough for 
Cerinthus and Mrs. Eddy. In the Herald of 
Christian Science for April, 191 8, there is pub- 
lished a sermon of Mrs. Eddy's. Here is a sen- 
tence from it, ** Jesus was not Christ; Christ was 
but another name for God, and it was an honorary 
title bestowed on Jesus for His great goodness. 
In the original texts the term God took its origin 
from the word good — hence the term Christ 
Jesus, a good man.'' 

The only explanation which I can see of this 
astonishing sentence is that Mrs. Eddy is confus- 
ing the Greek word Chrestos, good, with the 
Greek word Christos, Christ or Messiah or An- 
ointed. But theological speculation without a 
knowledge of Greek has led far greater minds 
than Mrs. Eddy's into absurdities. Christian 
Scientists are increasing in numbers and will in- 
crease much more unless the Church emphasizes 
the truth which, mixed with many errors, Mrs. 
Eddy taught. Christianity is a gospel for the 



Christian Science 35 

body as well as for the soul. This has often been 
overlooked, and in the Christian Science move- 
ment the Church is suffering the vengeance of a 
forgotten truth. In fact, almost all sects are due 
to the Church's neglect of some part of the Cath- 
olic Faith. ** When the historic Church forgets, 
new bodies arise to remind her.'' Amongst oth- 
ers, doctors are stimulating the Church to action. 
In the British Medical Journal of June 1 8th, 1 9 1 o. 
Sir Clifford AUbutt wrote: '' Probably no limb, 
no viscus is so far a vessel of dishonour as to be 
wholly outside the renewals of the spirit." 

Sir Dyce Duckworth, who was senior physician 
at St. Bartholomew's, London, for many years, 
has said, '^ I will express my opinion that our 20th 
century Christendom is generally lax and feeble 
in offering earnest prayers for the sick in all stages 
and for a blessing on the remedial means em- 
ployed. We should look to a Higher Power than 
that of man to aid at the bedside. ... I see no 
objection to the practice of unction and laying on 
of hands by Christian ministers for those who de- 
sire it." Even the Bishops of the Lambeth Con- 
ference of 1908 declared that *' sickness has too 



36 Four Modern Religious Movements 

often exclusively been regarded as a cross to be 
borne with passive resignation, whereas it should 
have been regarded as a weakness to be overcome 
by the power of the spirit.'' A bishop, it may be 
mentioned, is instructed at his consecration to 
^* heal the sick," yet we seldom hear of them do- 
ing it. 

The Communion Service, again, is plainly in- 
tended to be a strengthening of the body as well as 
of the spirit, as the words ** preserve thy body " 
indicate. In some of the old liturgies, this is even 
clearer, for example, '* make all who communicate 
to receive a medicine of life for the healing of any 
sickness " is a prayer in Bishop Serapion's Sacra- 
mentary. The New Testament has many allu- 
sions to God's power to heal the body. ** The 
prayer of faith shall save the sick " St. James 
writes. 

This part of Christianity can, no doubt, be ex- 
aggerated. Bodily health is not everything; its 
absence may be a benefit. St. Paul's mission to 
the Galatians was the result of an illness. St. 
Paul was not healed, though he was given strength 
to bear his ** thorn in the flesh." After all, as Dr. 



Christian Science 37 

Paget asks, ** Are we worth being well? " How 
would we use perfect health if we had it? Yet, 
none the less, Christ showed Himself as a Healer 
of men's bodies and we sometimes sing in church, 
'* Thy touch has still its ancient power/' 

Christian Science, then, reminds us that Chris- 
tianity is a gospel for the body; there is also 
something to be learned from a Christian Science 
service. The whole congregation is the choir, 
there is a period for silent prayer, and many may 
think it a good point that there is no sermon. 

Among Christian Scientists women are re- 
garded at least as men's equals. They have got 
rid of the Oriental attitude to women which still 
lurks in the Church as a part of her Jewish heri- 
tage. Their theology is '' heretical," yet there is 
among them a sense of the presence and spiritual- 
ity and law of God which, like the note of a great 
bell, brings quiet into their lives. They show that 
nervous strain can be removed by lifting the mind 
in meditation on the Universal Life of God. 

Three books written to expose the errors of 
Christian Science mention these good points in it : 

( I ) As a novel and militant heterodoxy 



38 Four Modern Religious Movements 

against a narrow and inadequate orthodoxy it is 
forcing men from the old ruts. 

(2) It has changed the tone of life of many 
self-pitying people. 

(3) It exhibits '* The victory of mind over 
its tyrants, fear and anger." 

A Frenchman once said that the ancient Ro- 
mans conquered the world because they could 
learn from their enemies and because their sol- 
diers kept their sacramentum or military oath. 
This remark is not without its meaning for the 
Christian Church. 



Ill 

THEOSOPHY 

ATHEOSOPHIST has been compared to a 
man who fights with his back to a spring 
door, behind which he can disappear when the in- 
terview becomes unpleasant. That is to say, when 
any doctrine of his is found indefensible, he has 
only to declare that it is no part of Theosophy. 
Theosophy, in fact, is more like a cloud than a 
creed, it is vague in outline and changeable in 
form, perhaps, too, it keeps the sunshine from 
those who are under it. One doctrine, however, 
is found in all Theosophical books and is, I think, 
held by all Theosophists. This doctrine is Re- 
incarnation. '' The doctrine of Reincarnation,'' 
says Mrs. Besant, a leading Theosophist, '* is the 
very core and essence of Theosophy." Reincar- 
nation means *' that the growth and development 
of the human soul is accomplished by means of 
successive returns to physical life with intervening 
periods of rest." It differs from transmigration, 

39 



40 Four Modern Religious Movements 

which means the return of human beings as ani- 
mals, as well as in the bodies of men and women. 
Reincarnation is therefore merely an improvement 
on transmigration, and belief in transmigration 
seems to develop, when an ethical religion, a re- 
ligion with a standard of conduct and a system of 
rewards and punishments, comes in contact with a 
decaying Totemism. The underlying idea in 
Totemism is that of a life shared in common by 
the human and animal creation. 

Mrs. Besant asserts that Christ accepted Re- 
incarnation. The proof she offers is that he 
told his disciples that John the Baptist was Elijah. 
The saying referred to is in St. Matthew 17:12 
and 13 and certainly does not mean that the 
Baptist was Elijah reincarnate, but rather that he 
prepared the way for Christ " in the spirit and 
power of Elijah." See St. Luke 1:17. Further- 
more the saying suggests that the treatment of 
John by Herod and Herodias was, as it were, a 
repetition of the treatment of Elijah by Ahab and 
Jezebel. Theosophists also say that St. Matthew 
16:14 implies a belief in reincarnation, but the re- 
turn of great historical figures at particular crises 



Theosophy 41 



is not reincarnation, even supposing that such a 
return ever really happened. Another proof of 
belief in reincarnation is found by Theosophists in 
St. John 9:2. The question there might mean 
that the people held that doctrine ; it does not show 
that Christ did. More probably, it is an example 
of the Jewish belief that even an unborn child 
can commit sin. 

Theosophists maintain that reincarnation ex- 
plains the inequalities of life. Our condition in 
this life is, they say, the result of our past lives 
and our condition in future lives will depend on 
our conduct in this one. Conduct is a seed which 
we sow in one life and must reap in the next. 
This law of cause and effect is known as Karma, 
pronounced Kurma, a Hindu word meaning action. 
Like much else in Theosophy it is borrowed from 
India, where it has been accepted from about the 
sixth century before Christ up to the present day. 
It is summed up in the Hindu proverb : 

** Who plants mangoes, mangoes shall he eat, 
Who plants thorn bushes, thorns shall wound his 
feet." 



42 Four Modern ReUgtous Movements 

The Christian parallel is the doctrine that 
*' what a man sows, that shall he also reap." The 
difference consists in a conscious reaping in this 
life or in the spirit world of what one has sown, — 
as for instance David did in the Old Testament 
story or the rich man in Christ's parable and the 
theory that we must pay for unknown, unremem- 
bered acts in another life on earth. Karma in its 
working, is as if a father were to wake his chil- 
dren in the middle of the night and whip them 
silently for forgotten faults of the past day. This 
would be a method of education of doubtful value. 

The following points may be noticed in connec- 
tion with the doctrine of reincarnation and the 
theory of Karma which is closely bound up with it. 

( I ) There is no satisfactory- evidence. The- 
osophists say that sudden friendships and infant 
prodigies are evidence, but if it be true, there 
should be more of both and infant prodi^es are 
prodigies only in music and numbers, not in science 
or philosophy. This merely means that the oper- 
ations of the mind that have to do with numbers 
are often developed early. It may be mentioned 
that reincarnation does much to deprive children 



Theosophy 43 



of their charm and freshness. According to this 
theory, a child is only like an old man who has lost 
his memory. Mrs. Besant says that she was a 
Brahmin, that is, a member of the Hindu priestly 
caste, in a previous life; we have only her own 
word for this and if it be true, he must have been 
a Brahmin of evil life, for in Hinduism, it is a 
punishment to be reborn as a woman. ( 2 ) It im- 
plies that there are no disturbing elements, as if a 
seed must grow no matter what the soil and 
weather be; this is unscientific. In real life the 
consequences of actions are indeterminate and 
vary greatly according to circumstances. (3) It 
leads to callousness and fatalism. If Belgian chil- 
dren, spitted on German bayonets, are only reap- 
ing the fruit of sins committed in their past lives, 
why should we be indignant at such outrages? 
The Germans are only the agents of these chil- 
dren's already determined destinies. We may, of 
course, by helping others, make good Karma for 
ourselves, we may '' acquire merit," but help ren- 
dered from that motive is a cold and calculating 
thing. (4) In India, it puts caste on a religious 
basis, and caste or the system of strict class dis- 



44 Four Modern Religious Movements 

tinctions is one of the great social evils of that 
country. Reincarnation and Karma cannot, there- 
fore, be logically held along with belief in a real 
brotherhood of man, though Theosophists try to 
combine these doctrines. (5) It is materialistic; 
if evil is to be rewarded by poverty and good by 
prosperity, then the moral and the material are 
hopelessly confused; we are back among the ideas 
which the Book of Job was written to refute. 
Moreover, according to the theory of Karma, 
Jesus must have committed atrocious crimes in a 
previous life to deserve a life of poverty ended by 
crucifixion. (6) It implies that evil governs the 
world, else why is release from Karma the aim of 
Hindu religion. This last fact seems to show that 
Hinduism itself is an implied criticism of the doc- 
trine of Karma. (7) It gives no help in account- 
ing for the origin of evil; it only puts the origin 
further back. (8) It opposes the teaching of 
Jesus, who declared that we cannot argue from 
calamity to guilt. Suffering follows sin, but ow- 
ing to the unity of mankind, the suffering falls on 
the innocent as much as, even more, than on the 
guilty. (9) It has no great influence on charac- 



Tkeosophy 45 



ter, because it is vindictive not reformatory, and 
therefore it is a method of punishment which civ- 
ilised men have abandoned. This is well ex- 
plained in the essay on Theosophy by Miss Dou- 
gall in '^ Immortality and other Essays." Sin is 
removed, she argues, when the injury is made 
good and the sinner made righteous, but the suf- 
fering of the sinner does not do this, not even 
when he knows the reason of his suffering. It is 
personal influence that leads to that repentance or 
change of mind which really removes sin. Sin- 
ners become more degraded the more they sin, 
they do not necessarily suffer more and so the doc* 
trine of Karma is bad psychology and bad '' jus- 
tice " too, for according to it, the suffering be- 
comes more and more severe, while the sufferers 
become more and more unable to profit by it. 
(10) It leaves no room for any real union be- 
tween the individual purposes of men and the uni- 
versal purpose or meaning of existence. It rep- 
resents us as men in separate cells in a prison, each 
working out his term; that is, it is an unsocial sys- 
tem. It makes expiation, judgment, the only pur- 
pose of the world process; it is therefore un-Chris- 



46 Four Modern Religious Movements 

tian, for Christianity affirms that God's purpose is 
not to dispense judgment, but to educate a race of 
beings into likeness to Himself. (11) It leaves 
no room for forgiveness and so between the doc- 
trine of Karma and the gospel of the Love of God, 
there stands a great gulf fixed. Compare, for in- 
stance, the last three verses of the 8th Chapter of 
Romans with this Hindu folk song composed by 
a believer in Reincarnation and Karma. 

*' How many births are past, I cannot tell, 
How many yet to come, no man can say, 
But this alone I know and know full well. 
That pain and grief embitter all the way." 

The author of a pamphlet ** Elementary The- 
osophy " writes that '' Reincarnation simply but 
grandly solves for us the riddle of the painful 
earth.'' It may for some people, yet the evidence 
is quite inconclusive and it is not clear why man 
must come back to earth again and again for his 
spiritual benefit, with a new body and no memory 
of past mistakes. The doctrine seems greatly to 
overrate this earth as a field for spiritual growth. 



Theosophy 47 



(See Karma and Redemption, by A. G. Hogg, of 
Madras.) 

Theosophists are not content with belief in rein- 
carnation and Karma. They have drawn up a 
time-table, as it were, of the round trip through 
thousands of lives. *' A Primer of Theosophy " 
tells us that '' the process of evolution upon the 
earth, as well as all other worlds, is by seven suc- 
cessive waves of life-giving energy, which it has 
been agreed to call rounds and during each of these 
stages of evolution, seven races, with many sub- 
divisions, inhabit the earth. . . . Four times that 
great wave of evolutionary force has swept over 
the earth and four great races have passed away. 
The present humanity is the fifth division of the 
fifth race." There are indeed more things in The- 
osophy than are dreamt of in heaven or earth. 
When it is asked: What is the evidence for all 
this, the answer is that it is the teaching of Mahat- 
mas. Mahatmas or Initiates or Adepts or Mas- 
ters are beings who have evolved to great heights, 
but remain in touch with humanity that they may 
help its development and teach Theosophists. 

Madame Blavatsky, a founder of the Theo- 



48 Four Modern Religious Movements 

sophical Society, said that she used to meet some 
of these Mahatmas in Tibet and she professed to 
get letters from them. After her death, her suc- 
cessor (Mrs. Besant) received letters in the same 
hand writing and welcomed them as from a Ma- 
hatma, until she satisfied herself that they were 
being forged by Mr. Judge, another leader among 
Theosophists. On this incident, which led to a 
division in the Theosophical Society, the JVestmin- 
ster Gazette of October 29th, 1891, commented 
thus : " It is a queer enough spectacle to see Mrs. 
Besant who regretted that her strict intellect could 
not accept miracles on the Christian evidence 
greedily swallowing the precipitated revelations 
of the Mahatma. 

This theory of Mahatmas gave Madame Bla- 
vatsky trouble too. ** Every earnest Theoso- 
phist," she writes in the *' Key toTheosophy," *' re- 
grets to-day from the bottom of his heart that 
these sacred names and things have ever been men- 
tioned before the public and fervently wishes that 
they had been kept secret within a small circle of 
trusted and devoted friends." 

Theosophists have taken this hint and talk more 



Theosophy 49 



now of their own investigations made on super- 
physical planes and less of revelations from Ma- 
hatmas. The results of these investigations are, 
some of them, interesting enough. However, it 
is necessary to examine carefully the evidence for 
their reality, to consider the qualifications of those 
who make the investigations, to ask how their dis- 
coveries agree with what we know already. 

Though the English may be questionable, the 
sentiment is sound in the following paragraph 
from an Indian paper, the Indu Prakash: '^ Even 
if Mahatmas and their specially favoured asso- 
ciates of lower planes, moving among us do exist, 
we, for one, would strongly deprecate any sane 
man of healthy intellect surrendering his reason 
and conscience unto them, and becoming merely 
the gramophones repeating time-worn shibboleths 
as so many parading Theosophists do." 

The motto of the Theosophical Society: 
'* There is no religion higher than truth,'' is one 
that must appeal to all Christians for, as Pascal 
said, ** The first of all Christian truths is that 
truth must be loved above all," yet when *' The 
Key to Theosophy " interprets the parable of the 



50 Four Modern Religious Movements 

vine and the branches in St. John 15 by asserting 
that *' each branch represents a new incarnation '' 
we are forced to conclude that truth is one thing 
and Theosophical truth another and a different 
thing. 

Modern Theosophy is the result of contact be- 
tween the Orient and the West. Theosophists 
are usually people who have been attracted by 
Oriental religious systems, especially Hinduism, 
and who have then made for themselves a kind 
of essence out of all religions and named it The- 
osophy. Their theory is that all religions are 
essentially one, that behind all differences there is 
an inner meaning, a ** secret doctrine " which only 
good Theosophists know. " Theosophy," ac- 
cording to a Primer of the subject, '* is the body 
of truths which form the basis of all religions and 
which cannot be claimed as the exclusive posses- 
sion of any." Hence it is sometimes called '' the 
religion of religions." 

** The Key to Theosophy " asserts that it is 
** the essence of all religion and of absolute truth." 
What may perhaps be called the Bible of Theoso- 
phists is *' The Secret Doctrine," by Madame Bla- 



Theosophy 5 i 



vatsky. As an example of how Theosophy Illum- 
inates Christianity, this quotation from Volume I, 
page 574, of '' The Secret Doctrine '' is worthy of 
notice: *' When He (Jesus) is made to say — 
* I ascend to my Father and your Father ' — it was 
simply to show that the group of his disciples and 
followers attracted to Him belonged to the same 
Dhyani Buddha, ' Star,' or ' Father,' again of the 
same planetary realm, as He did." This reminds 
one of the student who said that he had mastered 
his textbook and hoped soon to be able to under- 
stand the notes explaining it. 

The Theosophical theory that we can find the 
highest common factor or greatest common meas- 
ure of all religions and make from it a universal 
religion was popular in the eighteenth century, but 
is not easy to maintain now, because it is in essen- 
tial points such as the ideas of God and of Salva- 
tion that religions differ most. 

For instance, the moral teaching, the Ethics of 
Christianity and Buddhism are like in many re- 
spects. Some Buddhist sayings are very Christ- 
like, such as '' Hatred does not cease by hatred at 
any time, hatred ceases by love " and ** What is 



52 Four Modern Religious Movements 

the use of platted hair, O fool ! What of the rai- 
ment of goatskins? Within thee there is raven- 
ing, but the outside thou makest clean," yet when 
the doctrines of God and salvation are compared, 
the difference is complete. Christian salvation is 
fellowship with God in the voluntary service of 
absolute good; Buddhist salvation is Nirvana, the 
state of a blown-out flame, meaning either utter ex- 
tinction or a passive state of mind which some 
people might say resembled idiocy. 

The Christian works for the Kingdom of God, 
the Buddhist works for his own Nirvana, a great 
distinction. Again Buddha recognised no su- 
preme God, while Christianity is nothing else than 
an overwhelming, exultant idea of God. It may 
not now be said that Christianity is an enclosure 
containing all truths, while in other religions there 
is nothing but falsehood, yet the Christian must be 
able to show that Christianity is the focus which 
draws all the rays of truth and beauty from other 
religions and fulfils all that is worthy in them. 

Theosophists are the most tolerant of people, 
a natural result of their notion that the secret doc- 
trine of all religions is the same. Christians, how- 



Theosophy 53 



ever, believing that Christianity is the crown and 
goal of other religions must be intolerant. Chris- 
tianity, in one single point, is like Pan-Germanism ; 
it aims at world-dominion. Every missionary is 
a proof of the intolerance of Christianity, and so 
it is not surprising that Theosophists are unfavour- 
able to Christian missions. In the " Key to Theos- 
ophy," we read of " those sincere but vain-glorious 
fools, the missionaries, who have sacrificed their 
lives in the South Sea islands or China. . . . 
What good have they done? They went in one 
case to those who were not yet ripe for any truth ; 
and in the other to a nation whose systems of 
religious philosophy are as grand as any." 

This statement may be compared with the testi- 
mony of Darwin, the naturalist, after his visit to 
the South seas. *' The lesson of the missionary 
is the enchanter's wand " and also with the testi- 
mony of the United States ambassador to China in 
1895. "No one can controvert the patent fact 
that the Chinese are enormously benefited by the 
labours of the missionaries in their midst" 

Opposition to missions is not the only way in 
which Theosophists show their " tolerance." 



54 Four Modern Religious Movements 

Fraud and immorality are no bar to high office in 
the Theosophical Society. One of the two found- 
ers of this Society was Madame Blavatsky, the 
daughter of a Russian called Hahn. This 
woman, the author of the *' Key to Theosophy '' 
gave exhibitions of magic in India. They at- 
tracted great attention until the Society for Psy- 
chical Research held an investigation in Madras in 
1884 and pronounced the performance to be 
fraudulent. The case may be read in Volume 3 
of the Proceedings of that Society. Theoso- 
phists, however, are too tolerant to allow this to 
dim her light and Madame Blavatsky is regarded 
by them with almost as much reverence as is Mrs. 
Eddy by Christian Scientists. 

In her ** Key to Theosophy '' this question and 
answer is found: *' Enquirer — Do you believe 
in prayer and do you ever pray? Theosophist 
— We do not, we act instead of talk." Madame 
Blavatsky certainly could act. 

I have heard a Theosophical lecturer say that 
one must be careful in quoting Madame Blavatsky 
as she approved of blinds or camouflage in her 
statements. Here is an instance: The glossary 



Theosophy 55 



of the Key contains an explanation of the word 
Christ or Chrestos as Madame Blavatsky prefers 
it. In this note, Lactantius, a Latin writer of the 
third century, is quoted as saying in his fourth 
book, chapter 7 : '' It is only through ignorance 
that men call themselves Christians instead of 
Chrestians.'' The only sentence in book 4, chap- 
ter 7, which in the least resembles this quotation is, 
'* But the meaning of the name Christ must be set 
forth on account of the error of the ignorant, who 
by the change of a letter are accustomed to call 
him Chrestos." Madame Blavatsky's pretended 
quotation is therefore the exact opposite of what 
Lactantius said. This is indeed camouflage. Let 
this suffice for the character and accuracy of Ma- 
dame Blavatsky. Those who wish to learn more 
about her will find an account in *^ A Modern 
Priestess of Isis," by Solovyoff (translated by W. 
Leaf). 

Another light among Theosophists is Mr. C. 
W. Leadbeater. This man was guardian of a 
Hindu boy, Krishnamurthi, who was being trained 
to be a new Messiah. The father of the boy took 
an action to recover possession of him and won 



56 Four Modern Religious Movements 

his case. The report of the trial said, '' In regard 
to Mr. Leadbeater, His Lordship observed that 
in the witness box he admitted that he held what 
his Lordship would only describe as frankly im- 
moral opinions. No father could be obliged to 
confide in the promises of such a person." Mr. 
Leadbeater has written a book called " The Chris- 
tian Creed " ; one gem may be extracted from this 
work. ^' The clause usually translated — suffered 
under Pontius Pilate — should be rendered — He 
endured the dense sea." Theosophists often re- 
semble that Irish judge of whom it was said that 
he would believe anything except an article of the 
Christian Faith. 

That short and simple clause — suffered under 
Pontius Pilate — marks one of the great distinc- 
tions between Christianity and Theosophy and 
also between Christianity and Hinduism, the nurs- 
ery of Theosophy. 

To Hinduism, God is reposeful intelligence; to 
Christianity and to the religion of the Old Testa- 
ment, God is essentially will. He fulfils Himself 
through historical acts. Christianity might be 
termed the religious interpretation of history, it is 



Tkeosophy 57 



concrete — not abstract, it centres on the fact of 
Christ who *' suffered under Pontius Pilate '' at a 
certain date in a certain province of the Roman 
Empire. Bishop Westcott once expressed it thus : 
'' The thoughts by which other religions live are 
seen in Christianity as facts of human history." 

St. Paul's use of the word Theosophy in I Cor- 
inthians 1:24 well summarises the difference be- 
tween Christianity as the historical religion and 
that vague and cloudy system known as Modern 
Theosophy. ** We preach Christ crucified," he 
writes, *' a stumbling-block to the Jews, sheer folly 
to the Gentiles, but for those who are called, 
whether Jews or Greeks, a Christ who is the 
Power of God and the Wisdom of God/' The 
Greek for '' Wisdom of God " is Theosophy. 



IV 

THE MORMONS OR LATTER DAY SAINTS 

AT Cardston, in Southern Alberta, the Mor- 
mons have built a '' million dollar " temple 
to be the centre of their propaganda in Canada. 
Much of the land in the neighbourhood has passed 
into their control and they will probably own more 
before long. Alberta, as may be seen from the 
map, is the part of Canada nearest to Utah, their 
headquarters in the United States. Who, then, 
are the Mormons? They are the followers of 
Joseph Smith, Junior, a native of Vermont, who 
was bom in the year of Trafalgar, 1805, and was 
murdered by a mob at Carthage, 111., in 1844. 

" The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day 
Saints is," said Smith, '' the only true and living 
church in existence. All other religions are 
wrong, all other religious bodies are corrupt." 
He asserted that the gospel was taken from the 
earth in the third or fourth century, and only re- 
stored through himself. 

58 



The Mormons or Latter Day Saints 59 

Joseph Smith was not remarkable for modesty, 
indeed, in his later life, he rivalled the Kaiser in 
his claims. In 1843 ^e announced, *' I know 
more than all the world put together. ... I com- 
bat the error of ages. ... I solve the mathe- 
matical problems of universities with truth, dia- 
mond truth, and God is my right-hand man." 

The success of the Mormons is largely due to 
arrogant claims such as these, for the majority of 
mankind is credulous and uncritical. As the 
White Queen says, in ** Alice Through the Look- 
ing Glass," by drawing a long breath and shut- 
ting one's eyes, one can believe impossible things. 

Why are the followers of Joseph Smith, Junior, 
called Mormons? From Mormon, a general and 
historian, who is said to have flourished in Amer- 
ica in the fourth century after Christ and to have 
written an abridged history of his race, which was 
buried by his son Moroni and discovered in 1827 
by Smith, who translated it into English. 

This abridged history is now known as the Book 
of Mormon. The name Mormon, Smith ex- 
plained, is derived from the Egyptian word, mon, 
meaning good, with the addition of more, con- 



6o Four Modern Religious Movements 

tracted to mor, hence Mormon means more good. 
It may be mentioned that the English word, 
'^ more/' was not in existence in the time of Mor- 
mon's alleged existence, and even if it were, how 
did Mormon's father and mother come to know 
English? According to Smith, the Book of Mor- 
mon was written on gold plates in '' reformed 
Egyptian " characters and translated by him, with 
the aid of the Urim and Thummim; the latter, 
from his description, seem to have been very sim- 
ilar to two prisms of a chandelier. A copy of 
some of the characters on these plates was shown 
to Professor Anthon, a distinguished American 
classical scholar. In a letter to the Rev. Dr. 
Coit, dated April 3rd, 1841, Professor Anthon 
says of these characters: ''A very brief exami- 
nation of the paper convinced me that it was a 
mere hoax, and a very clumsy one too." 

A transcription of these characters is still in 
existence, and it may be seen that they could easily 
have been formed by Joseph Smith from a recol- 
lection of the Indian symbols cut on tombstones in 
his neighbourhood, and from the astronomical 
signs which are often found in a farmer's almanac. 



The Mormons or Latter Day Saints 6i 

The original gold plates were, unfortunately, re- 
moved by the angel who revealed them to Joseph 
Smith, Junior. The doctrines of the Book of 
Mormon are those popular in Smith's part of the 
country when he was a boy. He grew up in a 
turmoil of sects, and it is not surprising that, when 
there were so many confusing doctrines around 
him, he should have thought of establishing a sect 
of his own, and that fragments of these various 
doctrines should have found their way into his 
book. The book indeed is full of '* local colour.'' 
Beginning in 1826, there was a widespread anti- 
Masonic crusade in the States; in the Book of 
Mormon, published in 1830, there is a violent at- 
tack on secret societies. Moreover, the main idea 
of the Book of Mormon, that the Red Indians are 
the descendants of the ten lost tribes of Israel, was 
very popular in Smith's time, and was the subject 
of many books and sermons. Again, the dream 
of Lehi, in the Book of Mormon, is remarkably 
like a dream of Joseph Smith's own father, related 
in ** Biographical Sketches of Joseph Smith and 
his Progenitors," by his mother, Lucy Smith. 
A Mormon elder says of the Book of Mormon : 



62 Four Modern Religious Movements 

** In its pages there are no anachronisms and no 
contradictions.'' '* Take away the Book of Mor- 
mon and the revelations/' Joseph Smith declared, 
*' and where is our religion? " ** We believe the 
Book of Mormon to be the word of God," is the 
eighth of the Mormon articles of faith. 

These are rash statements, for several glaring 
anachronisms have been pointed out by Bishop 
Jones of Utah. The Book professes to be an ac- 
count of — ( I ) The Jaredites, who left the tower 
of Babel at the time of the confusion of tongues 
and came to America in barges, but owing to in- 
ternal dissensions became extinct; (2) The Neph- 
ites, a colony of Jews under Lehi, who left Jeru- 
salem in the first year of Zedekiah, 597 before 
Christ, and landed on the western coast of South 
America. After the death of Lehi, these people 
divided and were known as Nephites and La- 
manites. The Nephites established prosperous 
commonwealths, but the Lamanites fell under 
the curse of darkness, became dark in skin 
and degenerated into the Red Indians, who are 
their lineal descendants. The final struggle be- 
tween these two peoples resulted in the destruction 



The Mormons or Latter Day Saints 63 

of the Nephites about 400 A. D., but not before 
their records had been abridged by Mormon and 
hidden by his son, Moroni, for Joseph Smith to 
find and translate in the nineteenth century. As 
Bishop Jones shows, this remarkable story has 
some equally remarkable flaws. For example, the 
Book of Mormon quotes Isaiah, chapter 48--54, 
as being among the writings carried away from 
Jerusalem in the first year of Zedekiah, but these 
chapters could not have been written until nearly 
fifty years later, so the Nephites must have car- 
ried away writings which were not yet in existence. 
Again, the Nephites, who left Jerusalem about 600 
B. C, according to the Book of Mormon, had in 
America synagogues '* built after the manner of 
the Jews.'' Now, synagogues are not mentioned 
among the Jews until 200 B. C, so once more the 
Nephites seem to have succeeded in bringing from 
Jerusalem something which was not there ; in this 
case, the synagogue system. These are only two 
points, and there are several other impossibilities 
in the Book of Mormon. It is, indeed, a very 
shaky foundation on which to build '' The only 
true and living church in existence." The theory 



64 Four Modern Religious Movements 

that the Book of Mormon is based on an unpub- 
lished story by a man called Spaulding has strong 
evidence to support it and has not been disproved 
by the discovery in Honolulu of a manuscript story 
by Spaulding which does not resemble the Book of 
Mormon, for Spaulding wrote more than one ro- 
mance. The evidence may be read in '^ The True 
Origin of the Book of Mormon," by Shook (Stan- 
dard Pub. Co., Cincinnati). 

Mormons are of two kinds: The Utah Mor- 
mons and the Iowa Mormons. The Iowa Mor- 
mons, who call themselves ** The Reorganized 
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints," 
separated from the Utah Mormons on the ques- 
tion of polygamy or plural marriage. They have 
a church in Toronto and one of their bishops used 
to preach throughout the winter on Sunday even- 
ings in one of the city theatres. The sermon was 
usually ** scriptural," with scarcely any reference 
to Mormon fancies, perhaps a hurried allusion to 
the restoration of the gospel to earth in 1830 — 
the birth year of Mormonism. There also were 
on occasions some plaintive remarks on the fact 
that the papers will not report his sermons, some 



The Mormons or Latter Day Saints 65 

appeals to patriotic sentiment and for a large col- 
lection, and a reminder that there would be a bap- 
tismal service during the week at the Mormon 
church. Some inoffensive hymns were sung from 
the *' Saints Hymnal/' but not the one in which the 
Book of Mormon is referred to as '' Truth's tri- 
umphal car." Now these Reorganized Mormons 
declare that they are the true followers of Joseph 
Smith, the founder of Mormonism, and their claim 
has been upheld more than once by the courts of 
the United States. Brigham Young, who led the 
Saints to Utah in 1847 ^^^ who had at least nine- 
teen wives, they describe as a usurper who fastened 
polygamy on the church. This raises the ques- 
tion ** Who introduced the doctrine of plural mar- 
riage among the Mormons?" If Joseph Smith 
did, then the Reorganized Mormons are not his 
true followers, for they reject polygamy. The 
evidence shows that towards the end of his career 
Joseph Smith, like Mohammed, became a polyg- 
amist, but was too timid openly to make polyg- 
amy a doctrine of the Mormon Church. One 
fragment of the evidence may be given. Eliza 
Snow, one of Brigham Young's wives, wrote a 



66 Four Modern Religious Movements 

'' Biography of Lorenzo Snow," her brother. In 
this book she says: ^* The prophet Joseph had 
taught me the principle of plural or celestial mar- 
riage and I was married to him for time and eter- 
nity. In consequence of the ignorance of most of 
the saints, as well as people of the world, on this 
subject, it was not mentioned, only privately be- 
tween the few whose minds were enlightened on 
the subject." In 1852 there was published by the 
Mormon Church a ** Revelation on the eternity 
of the marriage covenant, including plurality of 
wives. Given through Joseph the seer, in Nau- 
voo, Hancock county, Illinois, July 12th, 1843." 
This document, too long to quote, is pronounced 
a forgery by the Reorganized Mormon Church, 
yet it is quite in Joseph's style, it agrees with his 
own practice, and the allusions in it to his first 
wife, Emma, are very natural. For instance: 
** And let mine handmaid, Emma Smith, receive 
all those that have been given unto my servant Jos- 
eph . . . and again, verily I say, let mine hand- 
maid forgive my servant Joseph his trespasses." 
One purpose, in fact, of the message is obviously 
to make Emma keep quiet, and who but Joseph 



The Mormons or Latter Day Saints 67 

would have so useful a revelation? The doctrine 
of plural marriage was introduced by Joseph 
Smith (though secretly), because he liked the 
practice of it and so did other Mormon elders — 
but how were women to be won over? First, of 
course, by telling them that it was a revelation 
from God, and secondly^ by telling them that by 
marrying a Mormon elder, they gained a sure 
passport to heaven. 

A woman's point of view in the matter of polyg- 
amy is expressed in a book which is perhaps the 
best antidote to Mormonism in existence. The 
writer, Mrs. Stenhouse, was the wife of a Mor- 
mon elder and she published her experiences under 
the title '' Tell it All," or '' An Englishwoman in 
Utah." Mrs. Stenhouse became a Mormon in 
1849 while in England. Soon after, there came 
rumours of polygamy among the Mormons in 
America, but their missionaries vehemently con- 
tradicted these charges. For example, John Tay- 
lor, a Mormon apostle, said at a public meeting in 
France in reference to the accusations of poly- 
gamy, '* These things are too outrageous to admit 
of belief." At the time he uttered these words. 



68 Four Modern Religious Movements 

he had four wives living in Salt Lake City. Mr. 
and Mrs. Stenhouse settled in Utah about 1857, 
but left the Mormon Church about the year 1870, 
having had enough of its despotism and absurdity. 
Another account of Mormon polygamy may be 
found in *' New America," by Hepworth Dixon, 
who visited Salt Lake City in 1867 and was enter- 
tained by Brigham Young and other prominent 
Mormons. '* In my opinion," Dixon wrote, 
** Mormonism is not a religion for women, it low- 
ers her in the social scale. . . . The Mormon 
women know very little and feel an interest in very 
few things." '^ Women at Salt Lake City are 
made to keep their place." Dixon also gives an 
interesting opinion about Joseph Smith. '' Had 
Smith," he says, *^ lived long enough for the facts 
of his career to become known, many persons think 
that among a people keenly alive to humour, he 
would have found no lasting dupes." 

Owing to the intervention of the United States 
Government, the Utah Mormons gave up polyg- 
amy, officially in 1890. Yet it has been stated 
by non-Mormons that unofficially it is still prac- 



The Mormons or Latter Day Saints 69 

tised and would probably be revived openly if the 
Saints gained sufficient political power. 

The first converts to Mormonism outside Amer- 
ica were for the most part English and Welsh 
Methodists. Times were bad in England in the 
middle of the last century, hence the promise of 
lands and houses in this world, as well as salva- 
tion in the next, won many to the new sect. Some 
were drawn to Utah by the announcement that 
God was about to destroy the Gentile or non- 
Mormon world, and that safety could only be 
found in the valley of the Salt Llake. The pros- 
perity of the Mormons in Utah was due first of all 
to their own industry, and secondly to the discov- 
ery of gold in California about 1849. This 
brought thousands to the West, and gave the Mor- 
mons a market for their produce. 

Mormons are very ready to quote the Bible in 
support of their doctrines. They regard the Bi- 
ble, however, as if it were a Chinese picture, that 
is, with no perspective — all is viewed on the same 
level. They do not realize that though God is the 
same, man's knowledge of God is different from 



yo Four Modern Religious Movements 

generation to generation — Jeremiah, for exam- 
ple, had a greater and wider knowledge of God 
than Samuel. Even if we follow them in the 
foohsh habit of quoting isolated Bible texts, some 
of their principles can be refuted by texts. We 
read for instance, in i Timothy, chapter 3, verse 
2 : '' The bishop must be the husband of one 
wife " ; yet the Mormon bishop, Lee, who was exe- 
cuted for his share in the Mountain Meadows mas- 
sacre, had 18 wives. 

George Townsend concludes his book on the 
''Conversion of Mormons'' with these words: 
" We believe that the preaching in Utah of the 
historic gospel and of a more reasonable and spir- 
itual faith will put to shame the old Mormonism 
and compel further eliminations and further sub- 
stitutions. The Latter Day Saints have an ad- 
miration for the good and true as well as other 
men, and if the lives of our church people are more 
clean and kind than those of the Mormon people, 
if our ministers are more courageous and intelli- 
gent than the Mormon ministers, if our church 
has in it more of the idealism and heroism of 
Jesus than the Mormon system, if our religion 



The Mormons or Latter Day Saints 71 

gives purer light to the soul in its aspirations after 
the Divine than does the Mormon religion, then 
there will be little need to decry Mormonism, for 
its eclipse will be manifest to all seeing eyes and 
it will stand convicted and condemned by the minds 
and consciences of its own votaries." 



CHRIST THE WORD 

NEARLY five hundred years before Christ, 
there lived in Ephesus, a philosopher, by 
name Heracleitus. He is described as having 
been *' above all men, of a lofty and arrogant 
spirit." When found one day by his fellow citi- 
zens playing dice with some children in the temple 
of Artemis or Diana, he said to them, ** Is it not 
better to do this than to meddle with pubhc affairs 
in your company?" Such remarks secured for 
Heracleitus the solitude which he desired. In his 
own time, he was called " the obscure," and as only 
fragments of his writings remain, he is now more 
obscure than ever. The essence of his teaching 
was that ^* all things flow, nothing abides," and 
Heracleitus is coming to his own again for this is 
also the essence of the teaching of Monsieur Berg- 
son, the most famous of modern philosophers. 
M. Bergson speaks of life as a great movement, 

72 



Christ the Word 73 

carrying us along in its course, as an unceasing 
becoming which preserves the past and creates the 
future, he teaches, in short that reality is a flow- 
ing. According to Heracleitus, this flowing of all 
things is unified and guided by the Logos. (Lo- 
gos is a Greek word which may be translated 
either '^ thought " or the utterance of thought, 
namely *' word.") 

'' This Logos," he wrote, " is always existent, 
but men fail to understand it . . . for although 
all things happen through this Logos, men seem as 
if they had no acquaintance with it." Again, 
*' Although the Logos is universal most men live as 
though they had a private intelligence of their 
own." 

'' Men are at variance with the Logos which is 
their most constant companion." 

Again, ** Wisdom is one thing, it is to know 
the thought by which all things through all are 
guided." 

About two hundred years after Heracleitus the 
Stoic School of Philosophy was founded at Athens, 
by Zeno. The Stoics are mentioned in the seven- 
teenth chapter of Acts and it is worth noticing 



74 Four Modern Religious Movements 

that two heads of this school came from Tarsus, 
the city of St. Paul. 

The head of the Stoic school after Zeno, its 
founder, was Cleanthes; he had been a pxigilist and 
was once arrested by the Athenian police for hav- 
ing no visible means of support. 

In his hymn to Zeus, written about 300 B. C, 
Cleanthes sings of a single everlasting Logos, 
" This," he says, '' all the wicked seek to shun, un- 
happy men, who ever longing to obtain good, see 
not, nor hear God's universal law, which wisely 
heeded would assure them noble life. They haste 
away however, heedless of good, one here, one 
there, some showing unholy zeal in strife for hon- 
our, some turning recklessly toward gain, others 
to looseness and the body's pleasures." 

Three hundred years after Cleanthes and this 
time in Alexandria, the city of Apollos, a Jew 
called Philo, wrote once more of the Logos in __ 
these terms. 

*' The Father who created the universe has 
given to his . . . most ancient Word a pre-emi- 
nent gift to stand on the confines of both and sep- 
arate that which had been created from the crea- 



Christ the Word 75 

tor. And this same Word is continually a sup- 
pliant to the immortal God on behalf of the mor- 
tal race which is exposed to affliction and misery 
and is also the ambassador sent by the ruler of all 
to the subject race.'* 

Within the lifetime of Philo, Jesus of Nazareth 
lived in Palestine, there is no evidence however 
that Philo ever even heard of Him. 

So in Asiatic Ephesus, in European Athens, in 
African Alexandria, men wrote of the Logos up 
to the time of Christ. The Logos did not mean 
exactly the same to all of them, to Heracleitus it 
meant the unifying principle of the world process, 
to the Stoics, it meant the universal reason which 
makes nature orderly, to PhQo it meant the medi- 
ating principle between God and the world; the 
idea of the Logos was however common in those 
centuries. 

About the year loo A. D., the author of the 
fourth Gospel took the Logos-idea into Christian- 
ity, used it as a bridge, someone has said, by which 
Christianity might march into the heart of the 
Greek world, and, according to tradition, it was in 
Ephesus, the city of Heracleitus, that St. John 



76 Four Modern Religious Movements 

wrote '' In the beginning was the Word or Logos, 
— and the Logos became flesh and dwelt among 
us." 

This identification of Jesus Christ with the Lo- 
gos has been called " The most important step 
that was ever taken in the domain of Christian 
doctrine." By it Jesus of Nazareth was declared 
to be the manifestation in time and space of the 
ruling principle of all things, to be in fact the utter- 
ance of the Life which is eternal. 



VI 

THE VALUE OF DEATH 

A JOURNALIST tells of travelling in France 
some years ago and finding in a village an 
innkeeper who was a man of one subject — Death. 
He could not understand how people were able to 
be interested in anything else. When the jour- 
nalist returned a few weeks later, the innkeeper 
knew his subject better — for he was dead. This 
man was probably avoided on account of his mor- 
bid conversation and yet he may have been more 
sane than his neighbours after all: for no silence 
and no sentiment can prevent death. It is the one 
quite certain experience for everyone. Indeed, it 
may be said that all religions owe their existence 
to these two things, the certainty of death and the 
uncertainty of everything else. Religions show 
the attempt to find something fixed in the midst of 
change and death. 

77 



78 Four Modern Religious Movements 

Change and decay in all around I see 
O Thou who changest not 
Abide with me. 

is an appeal from all religions. Buddhism is 
the exception which proves this rule, for Buddhism 
teaches that the search for something fixed is vain 
and therefore total extinction should be man's 
goal. 

Death is the one certainty and yet in spite of its 
certainty, the thought of death has very little prac- 
tical effect upon us. We seem to have a great 
faculty for suppressing disagreeable ideas. 

One of Christ's most famous stories is on this 
forgetfulness of death. It is about a man who 
planned a prosperous future for himself and died 
the same night. In making up his accounts, he 
had left death out. The famous series of car- 
toons known as ** The Dance of Death " is 
prompted by the same observation: that we are 
inclined to leave Death out of account. In these 
pictures Death is shown coming to all classes of 
men and women just when he is not expected and 
not wanted. 



The Value of Death 79 

But the fact of death is now being forced upon 
the world and the questions grow more insistent. 
Do the dead survive? What does death mean? 

In speculating on the question of survival and 
happiness after death, some are impressed by the 
analogy of birth, the event most like death of those 
we know. Birth is a death to one kind of life, 
but also an entrance into another. Man, it is 
argued, lives not once but three times: the first 
stage of his life is continual sleep, the second sleep- 
ing and waking by turns; the third, waking for 
ever. In the first stage, he lives in the dark alone, 
in the second stage he lives, associated with, yet 
separated from his fellowmen, in the third, his 
life is interwoven with the life of other spirits. 
In the first stage, his body develops itself from its 
germ, working out organs for the second stage ; in 
the second stage, his mind develops itself from its 
germ, working out organs for the third stage. 
The act of leaving the first stage for the second, we 
call birth, that of leaving the second for the third, 
we call death. Our way from the second to the 
third, the way of death, is not darker, it is argued, 
than our way from the first to the second, the way 



8o Four Modern Religious Movements 

of birth. One way leads us forth to see the world 
outwardly, the other, perhaps, to see it inwardly. 
And just as the infant, though alive before its 
birth, is blind and deaf to the light and music of 
this world, so, it is argued, are we, though alive, 
blind and deaf to the light and music and freedom 
of the world whose entrance is Death.^ 

Then there are those who say that they have 
penetrated this other world, that they have here 
and now communicated with the dead and many 
of those who believe this cannot be called feeble- 
minded or fraudulent. 

Most men, perhaps, have a reasonable certainty 
of survival after death, but not a scientific cer- 
tainty, the evidence, from the necessity of the case, 
awaits verification, it seems to them more in ac- 
cordance with a rational scheme of things that men 
should survive death than not. This is the poet's 
argument. Nature is a rational system, an intel- 
ligible order. Shall man, he asks, 

'' Man her last work, who seemed so fair. 
Such splendid purpose in his eyes, 

i"On Life after Death "— Fechner. 



The Value of Death 8i 

Who roird the psalm to wintry skies, 
Who built him fanes of fruitless prayer " 
Shall man ^' who suffered countless ills, 
Who battled for the True, the Just 
Be blown about the desert dust 
Or sealed within the iron hills." 

This argument reminds us that belief in survival 
and happiness after death is a consequence of 
belief in God and in God's justice. That is the 
way in which the Jews arrived at the belief. It 
grew strong in a time of persecution. The suffer- 
ings of their martyrs in the time of Antiochus 
Epiphanes (170 B. C.) compelled them to believe 
in future happiness for the dead, otherwise 
God was not fair, there was no justice in the order- 
ing of the Universe. God must be still their God 
and God is not a God of the dead but of the living. 
If God exists, they argued, those who were the 
instruments of his purpose could never cease to 
exist. 

And the Christian belief developed from the 
Jewish, fortified by the Resurrection of Christ. 
The belief of the Christians in the Resurrection 



82 Four Modern Religious Movements 



of Christ taught them that the Christian life is 
God's purpose and therefore it triumphs over 
death. The Christian life, the life of one united 
to God's purpose, the life of one who does God's 
will, is eternal, that is the Christian faith. Other 
ways of life may survive death, it is not certain 
that they will be everlasting, the Christian way of 
life is the only real way of life and therefore the 
only eternal way of life. Eternal life is, perhaps, 
a moral achievement. ** In your endurance," said 
Christ, *' ye shall win your souls." 

If the important thing be a certain way of life, 
of conduct, which is eternal because it is the Divine 
way of life, then death has a meaning and a value. 
It helps this way of life. Death seems to be es- 
sential for the education of man's spirit. The 
spirit of man, we know it well these years, has 
risen to its greatest height in the very presence of 
natural death and we have the amazing paradox 
of Christianity that the highest revelation of God 
is a Man willingly dying on a cross. This idea, 
the value, the necessity of Death, for the moral 
life is developed in a striking way in an unfinished 
novel by Nathaniel Hawthorne. 



The Value of Death 83 

*^ What a blessing to mortals," a character in 
this novel says, " what a kindness of Providence 
that life is made so uncertain; that death is thrown 
in among the possibilities of our being; that these 
awful mysteries are here around us into which we 
must vanish. For without it, how would it be pos- 
sible to be heroic, how should we plod along in 
commonplaces for ever, never risking anything? 
For my part," he goes on, ** I think that men are 
more favoured than the angels and made capable 
of greater heroism, greater virtue, and a more 
excellent spirit than they, because we have such a 
mystery of grief and terror around us; whereas 
they, being in the certainty of God's light, seeing 
his goodness and his purposes more perfectly, can- 
not be so brave as poor weak men have the oppor- 
tunity of being and sometimes make use of it. 
God gave the whole world to man, and if he is 
left alone with it, it will make a clod of him at last; 
but to remedy that God gave man a grave and it 
redresses all and makes an immortal spirit of him 
in the end." ^ 

In this passage Hawthorne suggests that Death 

2 Quoted in Edward Caird*8 " Balliol Addresses." 



84 Four Modern Religious Movements 

may be the great guardian, the great inspirer of 
the moral, the heroic, the Divine life. 

Furthermore it is death that gives dignity to 
even the most ignoble, to even the most fashion- 
able life. Every life is redeemed from littleness 
when we remember that Death awaits it. At the 
moment of death each one of the crowd is left at 
last with himself alone, the prompters are gone, 
he or she must at last be entirely real and un- 
affected. In itself we can imagine death to be a 
purgatory, a cleansing, a restoration to real val- 
ues, a startling reminder that a man's life con- 
sisteth not in the abundance of the things which 
he possesseth, nor in his position in society, but in 
what he is in himself alone. This is the dignity 
of Death, the dignity which death gives to even 
the meanest and most ignoble lives. In death, 
man, perhaps for the first time, meets with him- 
self and with the values not of the world, but of 
God. 

So, then, if moral values are the only eternal 
values and if death be necessary in order to hold 
us to these values, then, perhaps Socrates was 



The Value of Death 85 

right when he suggested that death may be the 
greatest of all goods to man, for Death is the 
opportunity of greatest victory to man's uncon- 
querable spirit. 



VII 



THE RELIGIOUS OPINIONS OF DEAN SWIFT 



SWIFT seems to have decided that whatever 
else he might be called, he would never be 
called a saint; there is little doubt that he delib- 
erately showed his worst side to the world; no de- 
scription fits him so well as Bolingbroke's '* a hypo- 
crite reversed." He professed to be a misan- 
thrope. '' Principally," he wrote to the poet 
Pope, '* I hate and detest that animal called * man.' 
The chief end and purpose to myself in all my 
labors is to vex the world rather than divert it." 

He once suggested that now and then beasts 
may degenerate into men. And yet Addison sent 
him '* Travels in Italy " inscribed to " Jonathan 
Swift, the most agreeable of companions, the tru- 
est friend, and the greatest genius of his age," and 
when he was Dean of St. Patrick's he helped the 
poor of Dublin with generous and judicious care. 
He described himself as 

86 



The Religious Opinions of Dean Swift 87 

" A clergyman of special note 
For shunning those of his coat." 

Yet he wrote often and at length in defence of 
the clergy against unjust attacks and inadequate 
salaries. The attacks he met by reminding his 
readers that the clergy were taken from the laity, 
there was no other material available; it was not 
surprising, considering their origin, that some vices 
still clung to them. 

Much that Swift wrote is coarse and indelicate, 
but it is worth noticing that he nearly always 
makes indecency and vice either disgusting or 
ridiculous, and no criticism of him is fair which 
neglects his chronic physical ailment, his loneliness, 
and his knowledge that he was going mad. '' At 
best,'' he once said, " I have an ill head and an 
aching heart." 

It is his morbid dread of being thought pious 
or benevolent, it is his revolting realism which 
makes Swift's religion of special interest. The 
religion of one who is always feeling that he must 
''set an example" is seldom interesting — even 
as a farce. There is no " keeping up appear- 



88 Four Modern Religious Movements 

ances " in the religion of Swift. He tried, in 
fact, to prevent any appearance at all. He re- 
fused to let his light shine before men. 

It is possible, however, to deduce his position 
from some of his writings. A few of his sermons 
are published: ^^ On the Trinity,'' /' On Mutual 
Subjection,'' ^^ On the Testimony of Conscience,^' 
^^ On Brotherly Love" (a curious subject for 
Swift to choose) ; ^^ On Doing Good," (A Sermon 
on the Occasion of Wood's Project) , '^ On the Ex- 
cellency of Christianity in Opposition to Heathen 
Philosophy," '' On False Witness," '' On the Poor 
Man's Contentment," ^' On the Causes of the 
Wretched Condition of Ireland," ^' On Sleeping 
in Church." 

Swift thought very little of these productions 
himself. '^ Here,'' he said to Dr. Sheridan, ^' are 
a bundle of my old sermons. You may have them 
if you please. They may be of use to you; they 
have never been of any to me." According to 
Mrs. Pilkington's memoirs, he once said to her 
husband : '' I never preached but twice in my life, 
and then they were not sermons but pamphlets." 
Mrs. Pilkington asked him what might be the sub- 



The Religious Opinions of Dean Swift 89 

ject of them. He told her they were against 
Wood's half-pence. Swift never formed the habit 
of magnifying his ecclesiastical performances. O 
si sic omnes. His Thoughts on Religion have also 
been preserved and, in addition, a few letters and 
essays on the clerical profession and the Christian 
faith. 

From these remains it appears that Swift con- 
sidered the Incarnation to be the essence of Chris- 
tianity. 

*' Since the union of Divinity and Humanity," 
he wrote, '' is the great article of our religion, it is 
odd to see some clergymen in their writings of 
Divinity wholly devoid of humanity." 

How this union was effected and how there 
could be three persons in one God were questions 
to which Swift offered no answer. He may never 
have read Bishop Butler's sermon On the Igno- 
rance of Man. He would at any rate have en- 
tirely approved of that discourse. 

All of Swift's doctrinal statements might be 
said to be on the text, ** We see but in part and we 
know but in part." 

As he expressed it in his Letter to a Young 



90 Four Modern Religious Movements 

Clergyman: '' For my part, having considered 
the matter impartially, I can see no great reason 
which those gentlemen you call the free thinkers 
can have for their clamor against religious mys- 
teries, since it is plain that they were not invented 
by the clergy, to whom they bring no profit nor 
acquire any honor; for every clergyman is ready 
either to tell us the utmost he knows, or to con- 
fess that he does not understand them; nor is 
it strange that there should be mysteries in divinity 
as well as in the commonest operations of nature." 
Along with this emphasis on mystery in religion 
there is that '* appeal to reason " which is so char- 
acteristic of the eighteenth century. " A plain, 
convincing reason,'' he wrote, *' may possibly oper- 
ate upon the mind both of a learned and ignorant 
hearer as long as they live, and will edify a thou- 
sand times more than the art of wetting the hand- 
kerchiefs of a whole congregation, if you were 
sure to attain it." " I do not see how this talent 
of moving the passions can be of any great use 
towards directing Christian men in the conduct of 
their lives, at least in these northern climates, 
where I am confident the strongest eloquence of 



The Religious Opinions of Dean Swift 91 

that kind will leave few impressions upon any of 
our spirits deep enough to last to the next morn- 
ing, or rather to the next meal." He told with 
approval of a man who made it a rule in reading 
to skip over all sentences where he saw a note of 
admiration at the end. 

Swift is not often thought of as a Pastor pas- 
tortim, yet he had very definite ideas on what 
the '* life and doctrine " of the clergy should be. 

In the Letter to a Young Clergyman already re- 
ferred to, he makes a suggestive remark on the 
use of heathen philosophers: *' Before you en- 
ter into the common insufferable cant of taking all 
occasions to disparage the heathen philosophers, 
I hope you will differ from some of your brethren, 
by first inquiring what those philosophers can say 
for themselves." 

He thought the clergy spent too much time with 
each other. *' In my humble opinion," he wrote, 
'* the clergy's business lies entirely among the 
laity; neither is there perhaps a more effectual 
way to forward the salvation of men's souls than 
for spiritual persons to make themselves as agree- 
able as they can in the conversations of the world, 



92 Four Modern Religious Movements 

for which a learned education gives them great ad- 
vantage, if they would please to improve and ap- 
ply it. . . . Let some reasoners think what they 
please, it is certain that men must be brought to 
esteem and love the clergy before they can be 
persuaded to be in love with religion." 

With this end in view, he suggested that the 
clergy — except the bishops — should dress like 
other men. 

He must have excepted the bishops owing to 
the speechless awe with which he professed to re- 
gard them. 

*' It is happy for me," he wrote to the Bishop 
of Clogher, ^* that I know the persons of very few 
bishops, and it is my constant rule never to look 
into a coach, by which I avoid the terror that such 
a sight would strike me with." 

Among the defenders of Christianity, Swift oc- 
cupies a peculiar place. He presents no apology, 
but satirizes " free thinkers " and their methods. 

His Argument to prove that the abolishing of 
Christianity in England may, as things now stand, 
he attended with some inconveniences and per- 
haps not produce those many good efects proposed 



The Religious Opinions of Dean Swift 93 

thereby is an excellent example of restrained irony. 
He explains that he is only defending nominal 
Christianity, real Christianity '* having been for 
some time wholly laid aside by general consent as 
utterly inconsistent with our present schemes of 
wealth and power." Of church services he asks: 
** Where are there so many conveniences and in- 
citements to sleep?" Why then abolish them? 
As to the clergy: *' What an advantage and fe- 
licity it is for great wits to be always provided 
with objects of scorn and contempt in order to ex- 
ercise and improve their talents," and '' If Chris- 
tianity were once abolished how could the free 
thinkers, the strong reasoners, and the men of 
profound learning be able to find another subject 
so calculated in all points whereon to display their 
abilities? What wonderful productions of wit 
should we be deprived of from those whose genius 
by continual practice hath been wholly turned 
upon raillery and invectives against religion?" 
** Nor do I think it wholly groundless," he goes on, 
*' or my fears wholly imaginary that the abolishing 
of Christianity may perhaps bring the Church into 
danger." *' Furthermore," he argues, ** the abo- 



94 Four Modern Religious Movements 



lition of Christianity might disoblige the allies who 
were all Christians " — the argument was writ- 
ten during Marlborough's campaigns. Finally he 
offers, as an amendment, that instead of the word 
" Christianity '' may be put ** religion in general " 
as a thing to be abolished. ** For of what use is 
freedom of thought if it will not produce freedom 
of action, which is the sole end, how remote soever 
in appearance of all objections against Christian- 
ity." 

Swift consistently maintained this doctrine, now 
so unpopular, that in their opposition to Christian- 
ity, men propose no other end than that of fortify- 
ing themselves and others against the reproaches 
of a vicious life. *' It being necessary for men of 
libertine practices to embrace libertine principles 
or else they cannot act in consistence with any rea- 
son, or preserve any peace of mind." '' Whether 
such authors have this design, this much is cer- 
tain," he acutely remarks, ** that no other use is 
made of such writings." So he insists on finding 
out from what quarter objections to religion come. 
*^ If any man," he argued, *' should write a book 
against the lawfulness of punishing felony with 



The Religious Opinions of Dean Swift 95 

death, and upon inquiry the author should be 
found in Newgate under condemnation for robbing 
a house, his arguments would not very unjustly 
lose much of their force from the circumstances he 
lay under. So, when Milton wrote his ** Book of 
Divorces," it was presently rejected as an occa- 
sional treatise, because everybody knew he had a 
shrew for his wife. Neither can there be any rea- 
son imagined why he might not, after he was blind, 
have writ another upon the danger and incon- 
venience of eyes." 

I think it was Mr. Asquith who said that free- 
thought was incurably sloppy and had better be 
named loose-thought. Swift held that free- 
thought was no thought at all. The faith of 
Christians he considered, was but as a grain of 
mustard seed compared with the faith of those 
'' free-thinkers " who accepted the absurdities of 
certain anti-Christian books in order to confirm 
themselves in their perverted tastes. His conclu- 
sion is that those who are against religion must 
needs be fools, and therefore we read in Exodus 
that of all animals God refused the first born of 
an ass. 



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